In the last several weeks, the administration took 2,342 children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. They labeled the kids as unaccompanied minors, and housed them with Health and Human Services.
Border Patrol operations chief Brian Hastings said among the reasons the administration has argued to separate children from their parents was concern that child smugglers were pretending to be the parents.
"From October, until April 2018, we’ve had 148 cases of fraud with 301 aliens involved," he said.
Health and Human Services Steve Wagner is tasked with finding places for those kids to live while in custody. He didn't know how many children had been reunited, citing the newness of the plan.
"I don’t know how many of the separated kids have been placed or reunited with parents. This policy is relatively new. We are still working with parents to unify kids with their parents after adjudication," he said.
The Border Patrol’s Hastings said each sector chief, like those that head the Tucson, Yuma, and El Paso sectors, is responsible for determining the age at which children could stay with their parents in custody.
The Tucson sector, Arizona’s largest, hasn’t responded to questions yet about what age it is using as a cutoff for separation.
